Question Customizing the start menu

[jhsachs]

I'm setting up a personal computer with Windows 10 , and I want to organize the start menu the same way it is organized on my Windows 10 work computer. How do I do that?

I found instructions for changing the size of the tiles, moving them around, etc. It's all pretty obvious stuff, except that on my personal system the start menu doesn't have any tiles. The right side of the start menu is filled with ads for Microsoft games and links to "trending videos" and "trending searches," and there's no apparent way to replace them.

It occurred to me that this could be a consequence of my personal Windows 10 being (so far) unactivated. I looked up the features that are disabled until a system is activated in a couple of places, though. They include customizing the wallpaper, colors, lock screen, and themes, but not the start menu. I'm left with a mystery.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

the start menu doesn't have any tiles. The right side of the start menu is filled with ads for Microsoft games and links to "trending videos" and "trending searches,"

if you right-click on these tiles and there's no "Unpin from Start Menu" option then you are stuck with them.

include the exact version of 10 that you purchased.
more than likely it is something to do with this OS not being activated but i've never seen it described like you have being full of ads with zero customization options.

once you get it activated and are looking to customize the Start Screen;
MyTile or Win10Tile, not sure which name they ended up using on the final version(s), has been a great asset.
an old screenshot:

 

[jhsachs]

Thank you for trying to assist. I tried again and realized that it's doing what I want, only with an unnecessarily complicated and confusing interface. When I open the start menu it displays tiles and lets me control them, but if I add a tile, then it hides the tiles and displays crapware. The tiles reappear if I close the start menu and reopen it.

So there's no problem, except Microsoft trying to be too clever, as usual.